“We were children trying to survive environments we couldn’t cope with. Every one of us. The system failed all of us, and we all knew it. Some of us survived, some of us didn’t, none of us came out unscathed.
All of us were singled out as the problem kid with problems, ignoring what surrounded all of us: violence, hopelessness, abuse, neglect, despair, bullying, torture, confusion, oppression.
What the media is doing to these children is its own form of violence. It is an invasion. It is telling our stories the way they see us, not the way we are.”
What drives me nuts about the whole “boomers vs. millennials” narrative is like – its construction depends entirely on the erasure of already marginalized people.
“Boomer”, in these arguments, always means “white, affluent, and able-bodied”. The existence of poor, nonwhite, or disabled baby boomers contradicts the oppressor/oppressed paradigm, so they are simply ignored. “40 years ago everyone had a house and a job and lived in harmony” is a fiction. It has always been a fiction. It’s post-WWII propaganda constructed to dismiss systemic poverty and racism. Hold up the smiling suburban ideal and no one will notice the slums. It has never been true for more than a fraction of people, and it drives me batty how many millennials wholeheartedly buy into it. I’m sincerely sorry you can’t afford a house, but for the love of god stop acting like systemic inequality was just invented because you hadn’t noticed it before.
The fact that this narrative has gained so much momentum lately is probably due to the fact that the middle class is disappearing. More and more among those coming from non-marginalized families are becoming poor and coming in contact with inequality.
Problems remain unnoticed as long as only minorities experience it. Which is sad and dangerous not only for the minorities themselves, but for society as a whole.
I agree. People are comparing the middle class now to the middle class 40 years ago, and it’s not inaccurate to say that we’re comparatively worse off now. Problem is, the analysis ignores anyone who wasn’t middle-class or higher to begin with.
In the last six months, the number of people referred to the Trussell Trust’s food banks in Rugby has gone up by 61% compared with the same period in 2015/16. Issues with benefits were the primary reason for getting help in 42% of all cases in the last year, up from 36%.
This picture is reflected nationally too. Food banks in areas of full universal credit rollout have seen a 16% average increase in referrals for emergency food, more than double the national average of 6%, research published by the Trussell Trust on Tuesday shows…
To get emergency food from the Trussell Trust, people have to be referred by another agency, typically debt advisers, GPs, housing associations, charities, and social workers. This means anyone getting help has already been vetted as in need…
However, Rugby’s food banks are not alone in seeing soaring demand for their services because of universal credit. The Trussell Trust has found the same trend across its food banks in places dealing with the full rollout of the new benefit.
The charity’s research found that the six-week wait is leading to debt, mental health issues, rent arrears, and eviction. It also showed that the effects of the delay often last after people receive their first universal credit payments, as bills and debts pile up.
Also, looking just at food bank access? The need for referrals may well also keep people who really need it away.
He was referred to the food bank by the British Legion a couple of weeks ago but it’s only now that he’s cashing in the voucher. He was too proud to come before, he says.
That’s a common enough thing, unfortunately. How many people are ashamed to seek out a referral to begin with? Besides the added gatekeeping always making it possible for people who do ask for referrals to get turned down. Are they going to be able to seek out referral again? Who knows. I probably couldn’t.
This gatekeeping hurdle setup has bothered me since I found out about it. Better that maybe a few Undeserving people who aren’t literally starving should have access to food banks than to run things that way and no doubt keep more hungry people away. One ugly side of the whole charity model, but I don’t need to get started into that right now.
Reminded of this, with the last reblog
Any time the words “incentivizing work” or similar are used, you know what the real goal is.
Per wikipedia, universal credit (which has nothing to do with UBI or negative taxation), has resulted in:
People having their benefits garnished because they couldn’t afford to pay rent, utilities or certain taxes. Said deductions are happening with no warning, with people only knowing they lose the money when they try to spend it.
Ballooning costs that aren’t going to people.
Many new claimants waiting weeks for payment. They then get behind with their rent. They then get hit by those deductions to pay that rent… Some claimants have had to wait eight months. Landlords aren’t happy either – they don’t want to evict people because of this but may not be able to afford not to.
Recipients resorting to crime because they are not getting enough money.
The computer system breaking, constantly.
Studies show that the system has resulted in increases not only in food bank use, but in indebtedness and rent arrears.
The money being sent to one specific individual, which has increased domestic abuse (especially financial abuse). People attempting to leave an abuser end up back in the six week wait period…essentially trapping them and their children in the abusive relationship.
An incentive not to work because recipients don’t want to (or can’t) deal with the waiting period again.
I wasn’t even aware of this mess, and it has “universal” tagged onto it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I remember when I was a teenager and I didn’t know what nonbinary genders were yet and only a vague understanding of trans-ness in general. I had a thought that was like “if I woke up tomorrow and I was magically a man, I don’t think I would mind.” And I know that a lot of people would probably make the conclusion that this makes me a trans man, but that’s not really the case here. I’m not a man. But I’m not a woman, either. It’s difficult to explain but I guess it’s kind of like… gender apathy? It’s why I identify the most with the “agender” label.
No for real tho. When I was trying to decide whether to transition or not, which was probably technically when I was a teenager lol, my thinking was basically, “I could probably deal with living my life presenting as either (binary) gender, and be happy (in life, not necessarily in my gender presentation) but if I woke up magically as one or the other, I’d be happier waking up magically being read as a dude.”
I feel like a lot of (nasty and ignorant) people would look at that as meaning that I wasn’t trans and just didn’t know what I wanted and would be unhappy with my choice later or something.
Mind you, the doctor, nurses, and therapist I had to see to get on T didn’t think that that was the case.
And fast-forward twenty years: this is still a pretty accurate take on my gender. I spent some years presenting only as a guy, some years presenting as a woman, got REALLY FUCKING TIRED of trying to pass as cis (in any direction, really), let my facial hair grow out again, and now I just do whatever feels right with my presentation.
Which, at least for now, basically means that I’m always visibly genderqueer. Eventually maybe I’ll get a binder I like more, and possibly pass more. Or, more likely, continue to confuse and sometimes delight people, but have a flat chest while I do.
(Eta: like themintycupcake mentions in the tags, feeling like this doesn’t mean you don’t experience dysphoria. I’d say it means that you always do, in fact, and that there isn’t really a good way out of it through transition for you.
Also, “I have to transition in this one particular way or kill myself” is not the only way dysphoria presents. It’s probably the most extreme way it presents. That doesn’t mean, as I sometimes see people imply, that if you don’t feel that way you aren’t trans.)
Just as a sidenote on that discussion around no-fault divorce (and UK legal space).
A marriage is where you stand up in front of your family, friends, and (often) God to promise that you’re going to stick with this person for the rest of your life. Where I come from, adults keep their fucking promises.
Actually, I never promised any such thing, and wouldn’t have been willing to if it had been required. (Same with the “forsaking all others”, for that matter.)
Precisely because I do take oaths very seriously, and cannot in good conscience promise that. Shit happens, and it’s impossible to know how the situation may develop over time. I’m not going to promise things that may be impossible to deliver even if I wanted to. That’s a ridiculous thing to promise in advance, without qualification.
(Not even starting into the very different ideas about what all gets lumped together as “marriage” across societies. Which may or may not look much like what that commenter wants to consider universal. But, not everybody attaches the same stigma to divorce. At all. And the lifelong thing comes bundled along with some very specific religious/cultural ideas about marriage.)
The only specific statements actually required in a civil marriage ceremony in England and Wales?
I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I [name] may not be joined in matrimony to [name].
and
I call upon these persons here present, to witness that I [name] do take thee [name] to be my lawful wedded wife / wife-husband / husband.
That’s it. You want to make other vows to one another that are personally meaningful? Go right ahead. But, it’s not required in any way. Two statements affirming that you intend to marry the other person, and hey presto! You’re legally married.
(As usual, it’s a little different in Scotland, but the requirements sound pretty similar. I couldn’t easily find the actual legal declarations there.)
We actually went with our local register office’s default ceremony, because there was nothing anybody objected to. Which was a bit of a pleasant surprise, tbh. They did a pretty good job at keeping it secular.
Anyway, it’s totally possible to have a wedding without the rest of your life even coming up. Thank goodness.
I don’t normally talk about the sanctity of marriage, ‘cause most of the people who say that phrase are a) religious and b) homophobic, and I am neither.
But I think one of the few things that genuinely does effect the ‘sanctity’ of marriage is forcing people to be married who don’t want to be – whether forcing them to marry, or to continue in a marriage when they want to divorce. Being legally obligated to do something takes away that thing’s meaning, and makes your integrity pretty much negligible.
(#people who don’t want the law changed because they’re worried about the sanctity of marriage #are genuinely baffling to me #marriage shouldn’t be a game of quantity over quality #in either sense of the phrase)
You notice how Trump demolished the food safety laws and now, in the past month, we haven’t been able to eat lettuce, eggs, Tyson chicken, and watermelon because there are huge bacteria outbreaks?
Just looking at those articles had this at the bottom
A lot of these companies are usually where lower income folks shop. I’m not saying the trump regime is trying to kill the poor, but…
this has all been a problem long before trump. The way food is mass produced and the way we havent had the greatest regulations in place even before trump cut them even more has been a problem and honestly a ticking time bomb waiting to break out with some super-bug. Tyson has been known for incredibly inhumane and pretty unsanitary methods of raising chickens. Many farms of all sorts even involving plants dont have good enough safety measures. Trump is enabling this even more but it goes deeper than trump
– Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.
– being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.
– not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.
– on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.
– in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.
– getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.
– there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.
– as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.
the only time I got a real life bully to stop was when I punched him in the face.
Some from my own experience;
-Even if teachers and the kids’ parents do their darndest to end the bullying with detentions and such, it might not work.
-Changing schools might not work, either.
-Fighting back might not work, if the bullies are strong guys and like to beat you up. I fought back, but got punched and kicked a lot back.
-If nothing seems to work, try to find a way to take courses in adult education.
Every situation is different, and so is what’s more likely to help. Sometimes nothing really does, besides riding it out the best you can. (And I know how much easier said that can be.)
I got two main approaches, neither of them remotely helpful.
At school: “Maybe try not being so weird”/“Ignore it!”
At home: “You must not have beaten on them enough, or they wouldn’t still be bothering you!” (Or, you know, maybe that approach is not actually appropriate in all circumstances, and might make it easier to paint you as The Real Problem 😩)
I’ll add that even in cases where bullies do get physical, they don’t necessarily have to be good at fighting for giving it back to them not to work so well as a deterrent. Sometimes they’re just sneaky. Sometimes they’ll carefully keep out of lunging range and throw stuff, after they’ve learned that getting closer is bad for their health. Sometimes provoking you into flipping your shit is apparently worth the beatdown. (Especially with the right audience. See also: sneaky.) And so on.
Expecting bullies’ motives and actions to even make sense to anyone but other people with the same mindset can be a mistake.
There is no one-size solution. I really wish I could offer one, myself. But, too many adults do want to think they have one–and it’s somehow a child’s fault if that’s just not working.
All this. And also. There will be adult bullies when you are an adult. (Adults can also bully kids, of course.) And if you run into the worst, they will be sophisticated, dedicated beyond belief to hurting people, and adept at what they do beyond what you may be able to imagine or believe is possible.
@thisisbeabe jumping in on this reply chain the only way this stupid website will let me —
Firstly, as everyone else has kindly pointed out, this is about bi people who only date the same gender describing their same gender attraction as gay, while also retaining the bisexual identity due to its personal significance to them.
Nobody here is suggesting that identifying as “bi lesbians” or “homoromantic bisexuals” isn’t ridiculous. Nobody here is disagreeing in that it would be inappropriate for a bi woman to say “omg I’m so gay for my boyfriend” (but it is mysterious that this is seen as an inevitability for us to the point of demanding we alter our colloquialisms even surrounding our same-gender attraction 👀). It’s about language and ease of relating to material realities.
Would you suggest that a bi woman marrying another woman refer to all aspects of her marriage as a “bi marriage” instead of a gay or lesbian marriage? Should we add a caveat to the specific way we may experience attraction every time it comes up? When advocating for our own rights and lives purely within the context of our same-gender attraction do we need to add the caveat that we aren’t “fully” gay, even when the people oppressing us (often violently) don’t care enough to make that distinction? Because surprise, bi people describing our attraction and relationships with people of the same gender aren’t the reason that homophobes disrespect all of us.
To suggest that, say, women who only ever date women, who experience all the struggles of a woman who only dates women and only wants to spend her life with women, is committing an egregious betrayal by technically retaining attraction to men whilst identifying her attraction to women through common language (eg. “I can’t wait to get gay married/she’s so pretty I’m so gay/I love the gay community!”) despite that being a non-factor to the actual trajectory of her life, is impossible to divorce from the idea that the love a bi woman has for other women is less whole, genuine, and valuable, than the love of someone who is “truly” gay/a lesbian. That we have to qualify our love in a completely different way that makes it distinct from yours, despite it impacting our lives from the legal to the personal in identical ways.
This is NOT me, nor the OP, saying that the individual identities of “lesbian” or “bisexual” don’t matter, and in fact they said quite the opposite, by the statement that it’s important to respect the bisexual identity of a woman who only wants to be with women – and likewise, respect the lesbian identity of a woman who only wants to be with women even if she has complicated feelings on men. (I think the person replying directly above you was talking about the emergence of distinct lesbian and bisexual communities, specifically, though I see how their phrasing could be alarming). But all while respecting that both women, through their love of women, are experiencing gay attraction and the struggle that comes with it.
Also it once again places the blame for straight men’s violent entitlement on women and our perceived misdeeds. Str8 guys will harrass wlw whether or not some bi woman says “I’m gay for my girlfriend,” because straight men learned that they are entitled to harrass and bully women into giving them what they want from a misogynist, homophobic society, not from LGBT women.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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